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http://bit.ly/2dwAovc
This Roller Coaster Helps People Pass Kidney Stones
(Yes, Really)
Doctors may have found an unconventional way to get rid of painful
kidney stones — but it will cost you a trip to Disney World.
By Sara G. Miller, Staff Writer | September 26, 2016 03:45pm ET
Researchers found that riding the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
roller coaster at Disney World could help ease
the passage of small kidney stones, according
to the new study.
Kidney stones are hard masses of minerals that
form in the kidneys. They can range in size,
from a tiny grain of sand to, in extreme cases,
the size of a golf ball. Patients with kidney
stones don't always need treatment, because
the stones can pass out of the body on their
own, but the process of passing them can be
quite painful. The stones must travel from the
kidney down the ureter and to the bladder, and
then exit the body through the urethra.
Riders on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster at Disney World.
Garth Vaughan, Walt Disney World
The authors of the new study, published today (Sept. 26) in the
Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, noticed that several
of their patients had reported passing kidney stones after going on the
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster at Disney World in
Florida.
In one instance, for example, a man told the doctors that he passed a
stone after three consecutive rides on the roller coaster, according to
the study.
Studying this phenomenon required a bit of ingenuity from the
researchers. To test the effects of riding a roller coaster with kidney
stones, they created a 3D model of a kidney that could be taken along
for the ride (concealed in a backpack, of course).
In the experiment, the researchers placed three real kidney stones and
some urine in the model kidney. The kidney stones were different
sizes: small (4.5 cubic millimeters), medium (13.5 cubic mm) and
large (64.6 cubic mm).
The researchers took the model kidney on the Big Thunder Mountain
Railroad roller coaster 20 times. They experimented with the position
of the different sizes of kidney stones in different parts of their kidney
model. On one ride, for example, the largest stone was placed in the
upper part of the kidney; on another, the large stone was placed in the
middle of the kidney. Ultimately, each stone was placed in each
location of the kidney for at least one ride.
The researchers noted that one aspect of the experiment that they
could not control was where they sat on the roller coaster. Indeed,
"seat assignment on the roller coaster was random and determined as a
function of place in the waiting line," they wrote.
But seat assignment turned out to be important. When the researchers
were seated in the rear car of the roller coaster, the kidney stones,
regardless of their size or location in the kidney, passed nearly 64
percent of the time, according to the study.
When the researchers sat in the front of the roller coaster, however,
the stones passed only about 17 percent of the time, the researchers
found.
The preliminary study's findings "support the anecdotal evidence that
a ride on a moderate-intensity roller coaster could benefit some
patients with small kidney stones," Dr. David Wartinger, a professor
emeritus of urology at the Michigan State University College of
Osteopathic Medicine and a co-author of the study, said in a statement.
Riding a roller coaster after having treatments such as lithotripsy — a
procedure that aims to break up kidney stones into smaller particles
using ultrasound shock waves — could prevent stones from getting
larger and causing additional problems, Wartinger said.
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http://bit.ly/2dATShY
New 'Artificial Synapses' Pave Way for Brain-Like
Computers
A brain-inspired computing component provides the most faithful
emulation yet of connections among neurons in the human brain,
researchers say.
By Edd Gent, Live Science
The so-called memristor, an electrical component whose resistance
relies on how much charge has passed through it in the past, mimics
the way calcium ions behave at the junction between two neurons in
the human brain, the study said. That junction is known as a synapse.
The researchers said the new device could lead to significant advances
in brain-inspired — or neuromorphic — computers, which could be
much better at perceptual and learning tasks than traditional
computers, as well as far more energy efficient.
"In the past, people have used devices like transistors and capacitors
to simulate synaptic dynamics, which can work, but those devices
have very little resemblance to real biological systems. So it's not
efficient to do it that way, and it results in a larger device area, larger
energy consumption and less fidelity," said study leader Joshua Yang,
a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst.
Previous research has suggested that the human brain has about 100
billion neurons and approximately 1 quadrillion (1 million billion)
synapses. A brain-inspired computer would ideally be designed to
mimic the brain's enormous computing power and efficiency,
scientists have said.
"With the synaptic dynamics provided by our device, we can emulate
the synapse in a more natural way, more direct way and with more
fidelity," he told Live Science. "You don't just simulate one type of
synaptic function, but [also] other important features and actually get
multiple synaptic functions together."
Mimicking the human brain
In biological systems, when a nerve impulse reaches a synapse, it
causes channels to open, allowing calcium ions to flood into the
synapse. This triggers the release of brain chemicals known as
neurotransmitters that cross the gap between the two nerve cells,
passing on the impulse to the next neuron.
The new "diffusive memristor" described in the study consists of
silver nanoparticle clusters embedded in a silicon oxynitride film that
is sandwiched between two electrodes.
The film is an insulator, but when a voltage pulse is applied, a
combination of heating and electrical forces causes the clusters to
break up. Nanoparticles diffuse through the film and eventually form a
conductive filament that carries the current from one electrode to the
other. Once the voltage is removed, the temperature drops and the
nanoparticles coalesce back into clusters.
Because this process is very similar to how calcium ions behave in
biological synapses, the device can mimic short-term plasticity in
neurons, the researchers said. Trains of low-voltage pulses at high
frequencies will gradually increase the conductivity of the device until
a current can pass through, but if the pulses continue, this conductivity
will eventually decline.
The researchers also combined their diffusion memristor with a socalled drift memristor, which relies on electrical fields rather than
diffusion and is optimized for memory applications. This allowed the
scientists to demonstrate a form of long-term plasticity called spiketiming-dependent plasticity (STDP), which adjusts connection
strength between neurons based on the timing of impulses.
Previous studies have used drift memristors by themselves to
approximate calcium dynamics. But these memristors are based on
physical processes very different from those in biological synapses,
which limits their fidelity and the variety of possible synaptic
functions, Yang said.
"The diffusion memristor is helping the drift-type memristor behave
similarly to a real synapse," Yang said. "Combining the two leads us
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to a natural demonstration of STDP, which is a very important longterm plasticity learning rule."
Accurately reproducing synaptic plasticity is essential for creating
computers that can operate like the brain. Yang said this is desirable
because the brain is far more compact and energy efficient than
traditional electronics, as well as being better at things like pattern
recognition and learning. "The human brain is still the most efficient
computer ever built," he added.
How to build it
Yang said his group uses fabrication processes similar to those being
developed by computer memory companies to scale up memristor
production. Not all of these processes can use silver as a material, but
unpublished research by the team shows that copper nanoparticles
could be used instead, Yang said.
Hypothetically, the device could be made even smaller than a human
synapse, because the key part of the device measures just 4
nanometers across, Yang said. (For comparison, an average strand of
human hair is about 100,000 nanometers wide.) This could make the
devices much more efficient than traditional electronics for building
brain-inspired computers, Yang added. Traditional electronics need
roughly 10 transistors to emulate one synapse.
The research is the most complete demonstration of an artificial
synapse so far in terms of the variety of functions it is capable of, said
neuromorphic computing expert Ilia Valov, a senior scientist at the
Peter Grunberg Institute at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany.
He said the approach is definitely scalable and single-unit systems
should certainly be able to get down to the scale of biological
synapses. But he added that in multiunit systems, the devices will
likely need to be bigger due to practical considerations involved in
making a larger system work.
The study's findings were published online today (Sept. 26) in the
journal Nature Materials.
http://bit.ly/2dKzda6
How cancer’s 'invisibility cloak' works
UBC researchers have discovered how cancer cells become invisible
to the body's immune system, a crucial step that allows tumours to
metastasize and spread throughout the body.
"The immune system is efficient at identifying and halting the
emergence and spread of primary tumours but when metastatic
tumours appear, the immune system is no longer able to recognize the
cancer cells and stop them," said Wilfred Jefferies, senior author of
the study working in the Michael Smith Laboratories and a professor
of Medical Genetics and Microbiology and Immunology at UBC.
"We discovered a new mechanism that explains how metastatic
tumours can outsmart the immune system and we have begun to
reverse this process so tumours are revealed to the immune system
once again."
Cancer cells genetically change and evolve over time. Researchers
discovered that as they evolve, they may lose the ability to create a
protein known as interleukein-33, or IL-33. When IL-33 disappears in
the tumour, the body's immune system has no way of recognizing the
cancer cells and they can begin to spread, or metastasize.
The researchers found that the loss of IL-33 occurs in epithelial
carcinomas, meaning cancers that begin in tissues that line the
surfaces of organs. These cancers include prostate, kidney breast, lung,
uterine, cervical, pancreatic, skin and many others.
Working in collaboration with researchers at the Vancouver Prostate
Centre, and studying several hundred patients, they found that patients
with prostate or renal (kidney) cancers whose tumours have lost IL-33,
had more rapid recurrence of their cancer over a five-year period.
They will now begin studying whether testing for IL-33 is an effective
way to monitor the progression of certain cancers.
"IL-33 could be among the first immune biomarkers for prostate
cancer and, in the near future, we are planning to examine this in a
larger sample size of patients," said Iryna Saranchova, a PhD student
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in the department of microbiology and immunology and first author
on the study.
Researchers have long tried to use the body's own immune system to
fight cancer but only in the last few years have they identified
treatments that show potential.
In this study Saranchova, Jefferies and their colleagues at the Michael
Smith Laboratories, found that putting IL-33 back into metastatic
cancers helped revive the immune system's ability to recognize
tumours. Further research will examine whether this could be an
effective cancer treatment in humans.
This study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. This
research was funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.
Background
This research was completed with co-authors: Jeff Han, Hui Huang, Franz
Fenninger, Kyung Bok Choi, Lonna Munro and Cheryl Pfeifer at the Michael
Smith Laboratories, the Centre for Blood Research, the Djavad Mowafaghian
Centre for Brain Health, and the departments of medical genetics, zoology and
microbiology and immunology at UBC; as well as Alexander Wyatt, Ladan Fazli
and Martin Gleave at the Vancouver Prostate Centre, a research hub hosted by
UBC and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute; and Ian Welch in UBC
Animal Care Services.
How does IL-33 work?
Cancer cells genetically change and evolve. As the cells evolve, they
lose the ability to create a protein known as interleukein-33 (IL-33).
This protein influences another protein complex, known as the major
histocompatibility complex (MHC), that act as beacons to help
identify whether a given cell is a good cell or a bad cell. With these
proteins working, primary tumour cells put warning flags on the
outside of the cell so that immune cells recognize it and destroy it.
When interleukin-33 disappears in the tumour, the flag-displaying
pathway falls apart and body's immune system has no way of
recognizing the cancer cells and they can begin to spread, or
metastasize.
Iryna Saranchova, Jeffrey Han, Hui Huang, Franz Fenninger, Kyung Bok Choi, Lonna
Munro, Cheryl Pfeifer, Ian Welch, Alexander W. Wyatt, Ladan Fazli, Martin E. Gleave,
Wilfred A. Jefferies. Discovery of a Metastatic Immune Escape Mechanism Initiated by the
Loss of Expression of the Tumour Biomarker Interleukin-33. Scientific Reports, 2016; 6:
30555 DOI: 10.1038/srep30555
http://bit.ly/2dBmI1t
It Takes 2: RNA–DNA Mashup May Have Kick-Started
Life on Earth
New research shows each molecule needed the other one
By Melissae Fellet, ChemistryWorld on September 26, 2016
Early life may have emerged from a mixture of RNA and DNA
building blocks, developing the two nucleic acids simultaneously
instead of evolving DNA from RNA.
According to the RNA world hypothesis, early life used RNA to carry
genetic information and perform biochemical catalytic reactions. Over
time, DNA developed from RNA as the carrier of genetic information
and proteins appeared as biochemical catalysts.
As RNA gave way to DNA, some think a mixture of nucleotide
building blocks would have been inevitable. As these nucleotides
connected to form strands, the thermodynamic and kinetic stability of
pure RNA and DNA duplexes would drive these nucleic acids to
accumulate in primitive cells, while less thermally stable complexes
containing one strand of RNA and one strand of DNA fell apart.
Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, at the Scripps Research Institute, and
colleagues wondered if duplexes where each strand contains both
RNA and DNA nucleotides were stable enough to have been possible
intermediates during the transition from RNA to DNA. The
researchers purchased commercially synthesised sequences of RNA
and DNA, six to 16 bases long. In some sequences, they
systematically changed purine RNA nucleotides, containing the bases
adenine or guanine, into the corresponding DNA purines. In others,
they changed pyrimidine RNA nucleotides, with cytidine or uracil
bases, into pyrimidine DNA nucleotides with cytidine or thymidine
bases. The result was several series of nucleic acid duplexes that
ranged from having all RNA nucleotides to none at all.
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To test the thermal stability of these sequences, the researchers heated
http://bit.ly/2cJLfk9
each duplex to separate the strands. Then they measured the increase Artificial Blood Vessels Grow After They're Implanted
in UV absorption as the strands melted. The faster the absorption Researchers have engineered artificial blood vessels that can grow
increased as the temperature increased, the faster the strands separated, after they are implanted, according to a new study done in lambs.
indicating a less stable duplex. Many mixed duplexes with strands
By Agata Blaszczak-Boxe, Contributing
containing both RNA and DNA nucleotides melted as much as 20 The blood vessels were engineered to replace real vessels that would
degrees before pure RNA or pure DNA duplexes, indicating they were normally carry blood from the lambs' hearts to their lungs. The results
significantly less thermally stable than the pure duplexes.
could one day help to make vessels that could prevent the need for
Krishnamurthy says they were surprised to see this instability trend repeated surgeries in children with certain heart defects, although
hold for a variety of sequences. Without ways to prevent these mixed more research is needed to test whether these vessels could eventually
sequences from forming or primitive catalysts to overcome their be implanted in humans, the researchers said.
instability, the researchers imagine that the most efficient path to pure Children who have certain heart defects may need surgery to replace
RNA and pure DNA duplexes would start from a mixture of both the vessels connecting the heart to the lungs. But the reconstructed
nucleotides, rather than that nucleotide mixture developing from a vessels that are currently used in these surgeries are made of a
pool of pure RNA.
material that can't grow as the child grows, said study co-author
‘This paper presents significant results that will influence our thinking Robert Tranquillo, a professor of biomedical engineering at the
about the way that RNA and DNA could have interacted in primitive University of Minnesota. "There is no material that grows with a
life,’ says David Deamer, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, person," Tranquillo told Live Science. As a result, these children may
US. Depending on conditions, however, RNA and DNA have very have to undergo five to seven surgeries during their lifetimes, just to
different abilities to withstand chemical changes like depurination, keep getting new, larger replacements for the vessels.
deamination, and hydrolysis. The chemical stability of these two In the new study, the researchers wanted to address this problem and
nucleic acids should also be considered when thinking about how they create a material that would be capable of growth and that could
could become incorporated into the earliest forms of life, he adds.
eventually eliminate the need for these children to have multiple
The assumption that a primitive world was not chemically surgeries.
sophisticated enough to differentiate RNA and DNA building blocks To engineer the artificial blood vessels, the researchers first placed
challenges some evidence for the capabilities of the RNA world, says sheepskin cells into a special tube, and then pumped nutrients into the
Steven Benner, of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in fluid around the cells, allowing the cells to grow. Eventually, the cells
the US. Small molecules that enhance the activity of modern enzymes, formed a sheet that took on the shape of the tube. The pumping caused
such as coenzyme A, have RNA nucleotide tails. This indicates that the cells to stretch and deposit proteins into their surroundings. These
these RNA cofactors could have been part of a RNA world able to proteins would eventually serve as building blocks for the vessels.
assemble pure RNA and pure DNA from a pool of both nucleotides, Then, the researchers washed the cells away, and all that was left was
he says.
a tube-shaped protein scaffold. The researchers hoped that if they got
rid of the cells, the blood-vessel grafts would not be recognized as
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The certification process “is really hard,” said Dr. Merceline DahlRegis, who chaired the expert committee that made the announcement.
“It’s not an easy task.” She did not name the countries that delayed the
certification, but she did congratulate Brazil for working especially
hard to vaccinate children and look for cases in recent years.
Despite the elimination of endemic measles, outbreaks of imported
strains continue. A case of measles in the United States was reported
earlier this month, for example. In December 2014, an outbreak of
hundreds of cases started in California’s Disneyland and spread to
several western states and then to Mexico and Canada.
The outbreak, involving a strain of measles circulating in the
Philippines, was declared over in April 2015. But its rapid
dissemination exposed the fact that nine million American children
were not fully vaccinated against measles and led to tightening of
vaccination rules for California schoolchildren.
In February 2015, P.A.H.O. and the World Health Organization
warned that vaccination rates in the United States and Brazil appeared
to be “below levels needed to prevent the spread of imported cases.”
Dr. Susan Reef, a measles and rubella specialist at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention consulting with P.A.H.O., said that
Americas Region Declared Free of Endemic Measles
Global health authorities on Tuesday declared the Americas free of the 2015 outbreak was “a tiny issue compared to tens of thousands of
cases” seen in countries where measles is endemic. Transmission in
endemic measles, the first region to be so certified.
that instance was not considered endemic because it did not go on for
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. SEPT. 27, 2016
The hemisphere’s last case of endemic measles — meaning one that more than a year, she said. “That outbreak was stopped very quickly,”
did not spring from an imported strain — was in 2002.
she said, adding that the unvaccinated Americans to whom measles
Normally, it takes three years without cases to declare a disease spread were “a very, very tiny group.”
eradicated from a region, but in this instance it took 14 years.
Measles is one of the most infectious diseases known, and its
Experts at the Pan American Health Organization in Washington, D.C., elimination has been a goal of the W.H.O. for decades. Worldwide,
where the announcement was made, cited several reasons for the cases have dropped nearly 80 percent in the last two decades, as
delay: poor communication between local and national health donors began pouring money into buying vaccines for poor countries.
departments in some countries, large numbers of unvaccinated mobile But 315 children worldwide still die of measles every day, said Dr.
migrants in others, and parts of other countries that were unreachable Mary Agocs, an adviser to the Red Cross.
because of fighting.
foreign bodies and, in turn, would not be rejected by the recipients'
immune systems.
Next, the researchers implanted those blood-vessel grafts in three 5week-old lambs, to replace parts of the vessels connecting the heart
and the lungs. They found that the protein scaffolds became populated
by the lambs' own cells after transplantation, and grew together as the
lambs grew.
The researchers followed the sheep until they turned almost 1 year old
and were about four to five times larger than they were when the
vessels were implanted. The lambs did not seem to experience any
negative side effects from the transplants, according to the study,
published Sept. 27 in the journal Nature Communications.
Also at that time, the researchers removed the grafted blood vessels
from the lambs, and examined the vessels' features. They found that
the grafts had grown from relatively small tubes to larger structures
that were about 50 percent longer and wider than their original lengths
and widths, and were functioning almost like normal arteries in the
adult sheep, Tranquillo said.
http://nyti.ms/2dB3aGs
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http://bit.ly/2duX3q3
Pilots, air traffic controllers shifting to text messaging
Most of the nation's busiest airports will switch by the end of the
year
September 27, 2016 by Joan Lowy
Airline pilots and air traffic controllers are on schedule to switch to
text communications at most of the nation's busiest airports by the end
of the year, a milestone that holds the potential to reduce delays,
prevent errors and save billions of dollars in fuel cost, says the Federal
Aviation Administration.
Controllers and pilots will still use their radios for quick exchanges
like clearance for takeoff and in emergencies and situations where
time is critical. But the nation's air traffic system is gradually shifting
to text messages for a majority of flying instructions.
That's a big advantage, say government and industry officials, because
up until now longer and more complicated instructions like a route
change for pilots of planes waiting to take off are communicated
verbally, with each word laboriously spelled out in the radio alphabet.
For example, HARD becomes "Hotel Alfa Romeo Delta." And it is
hard to get it right. Pilots have to write down the directions as the
controller reads them—then they read them back, also spelling out
each word. If there is a mistake, the controller reads the directions
back to the pilot again the same way, and so on. Even when there are
no mistakes, the process can eat up valuable minutes.
If controllers want to reroute planes around a thunderstorm, they have
to contact each plane by radio to relay instructions individually. With
dozens of planes waiting for their turn to get instructions, the process
can take 30 minutes or longer.
With the new system, called Data Comm, a controller can type a few
instructions into a computer, tap a key and send the message directly
to the flight management computers in each plane that needs the
information. Pilots read the information on cockpit display screens
and decide with the push of a button whether to accept it. The
controller's message is also sent directly to airline flight dispatch
computers, eliminating more time-consuming steps. Typing errors are
always a risk with text messaging, but officials said the system has
built-in safeguards that cause it to reject messages with certain errors.
"Data Comm will allow passengers to get off the tarmac, into the air
and to their destinations more quickly," said Jim Eck, FAA's assistant
administrator for modernization of the air traffic system. "Airlines will
be able to stay on schedule and packages will be delivered on time."
Data Comm was rolled out at Dulles International Airport outside
Washington, D.C., three weeks ago. "We're all loving it," said
controller Sharlotte Yealdhall. "It has made a huge difference."
So far, Dulles controllers have been able to substitute Data Comm for
voice communications for about 10 to 20 percent of their departures.
That share will increase as airlines equip more of their planes to use
the technology. Eight U.S. passenger and cargo airlines—American,
Delta, Hawaiian, Southwest, United, Virgin America, United Parcel
Service and FedEx—and 17 international carriers have told the FAA
they plan to add Data Comm to their planes.
Delta estimates that Data Comm can shave one minute off the time it
takes a plane to taxi for takeoff. Spread over Delta's fleet of planes,
the airline says that adds up to a savings of about $20 million a year.
The FAA estimates Data Comm will save airlines more than $10
billion over the next 30 years and the government another $1 billion.
The FAA began testing Data Comm in 2013 at airports in Memphis,
Tennessee, and Newark, New Jersey. At the start of this year, it was in
use at five airports. The FAA says it expects the system to be in use at
50 airports by the end of the year.
Planes waiting to take off at airports are one phase of the Data Comm
rollout. The system is already in use in for high-altitude air traffic on
busy trans-Atlantic routes, but not during the high-altitude phase of
domestic flights. The FAA expects to have the system ready at its air
traffic centers that handle high-altitude flights beginning in 2019.
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http://bbc.in/2dJpP3I
Elon Musk outlines Mars colony vision
Entrepreneur Elon Musk has outlined his vision for establishing a
human colony on Mars for people that can afford a $200,000
ticket price.
By Rob Coppinger Spaceflight writer, Guadalajara, Mexico
Mr Musk, who founded private spaceflight company SpaceX, was
speaking at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in
Guadalajara, Mexico, on Tuesday.
His colonisation plan uses a fully reusable transportation system that
would take 100 people and 80 days to get to Mars and eventually as
little as 30 days. This transportation system consists of a spaceship
that is refuelled with methane and oxygen in Earth orbit and also on
Mars after landing there.
Mr Musk explained that to achieve the $200,000 price, the entire
transportation system has to be reusable. He spoke of a colony of a
million people to make it self-sustaining and that, with his plan, that
could take 100 years. To reach a million, Mr Musk said: "I want to
make Mars seem possible, something we can do in our life times…
and that anyone can go if they wanted to." The first Mars flight could
take place in 2022, according to SpaceX's timeline for Mars
colonisation.
Mr Musk said that he would like to name the first spacecraft that goes
to Mars, The Heart of Gold, after a starship in Douglas Adams' book,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The launch site will be Nasa's
Kennedy Space Centre pad 39, from where the Apollo Moon missions
flew.
The reason why Mr Musk wants to go to Mars is, he said: "Without
someone with a real ideological commitment, it didn't seem we were
on any trajectory to become a spacefaring civilisation." The prototype
spaceship is planned to make test flights in four years, initially going
into space, but not into orbit.
At the weekend, Mr Musk announced that SpaceX had carried out its
first test of the Raptor rocket engine that will power the spaceship and
the booster that puts it into orbit.
A prototype booster fuel tank has been built and tested and Mr Musk
showed a picture of the enormous tank with staff standing next to it.
The combination of the booster and spaceship is called the
Interplanetary Transportation System (ITS) and together they stand
122 metres tall, bigger than an Apollo-era Moon programme Saturn V
rocket. The booster will have 42 Raptor engines. Arranged in
concentric circles, there will be an outer circle of 24 engines, an inner
circle of 14 and in the centre seven Raptors.
Future versions of the ITS could be larger to accommodate bigger
spaceships with up to 200 passengers. The spaceship will have nine
Raptor engines, carry 450 tonnes of people and cargo and have an
open plan "occupant compartment" for colonists, according to Mr
Musk. He envisages communal living during the eighty-day trip with
movies and lectures and zero gravity games.
The ITS' development will be funded by profit from SpaceX, Mr
Musk's own wealth. He sees the colonisation of Mars as a "huge
public private partnership", and said, "that is how the United States
was established".
Spaceships would be sent every
two years when Mars is closest to
Earth and the two worlds will be
57.6 million kilometres apart in
2018.
The SpaceX founder wants to open up access to the whole of the "Greater Solar
System" SpaceX
At their furthest, they can be 400 million kilometres apart and in the
past they have only been as close as 100 million kilometres.
Once it reaches Mars, the spaceship is shaped so that it will naturally
be decelerated as it passes through the atmosphere. Its engines will
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then fire to slow it down to land vertically on legs, like SpaceX's
Falcon 9 rocket does today.
Mr Musk outlined a future where 1,000 spaceships could be in orbit.
"The Mars colonial fleet would depart en masse." He expected a
spaceship to last 12-15 flights. The price could eventually come down
to $100,000 to $140,000. If someone wanted to return to Earth they
could take a returning spaceship, "for free", Mr Musk commented.
SpaceX also plans to launch the spacecraft it calls Red Dragon to
Mars in a couple of years when the Earth and Mars are closest.
Red Dragon is a version of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft that is
carrying cargo to the International Space Station, and a human version
is being developed for astronauts. SpaceX will offer the Red Dragon
flights to governments and private organisations to send scientific and
commercial payloads to the Red Planet.
Telomeres shrink over time and people with long ones tend to age
more slowly than those with short ones. The conclusion? Teenagers
who have spots are more likely to look youthful for longer.
The science part
In the King's College study, a quarter of the female twins who took
part in the research had acne. Analysis of skin samples highlighted a
gene pathway called p53 which regulates the death of cells. This can
be triggered when telomeres become too short. However, the p53
pathway was found to be less active in the skin of acne sufferers.
What the experts say
For a long time dermatologists have known that the skin of people
with acne appears to age more slowly, but until now they weren't sure
why. "Our findings suggest the cause could be linked to the length of
telomeres which appears to be different in acne sufferers and means
their cells may be protected against ageing," explains lead researcher
http://bbc.in/2cK68f6
Dr Simone Ribero from King's College London.
Teens with spots tend to stay looking younger for longer, Co-author Dr Veronique Bataille said: "Longer telomeres are likely to
be one factor explaining the protection against premature skin ageing
new research suggests
If you're a teenager who has acne, it can feel like the end of the in individuals who previously suffered from acne."
The researchers say more investigations are needed.
world. But your adult self may thank you for it.
http://bit.ly/2cKVUWJ
By Anna Collinson
New research from King's College London, based on 1,205 female
Freezing technique is an effective alternative to
twins, suggests adolescents with spots tend to stay looking youthful
lumpectomy for early stage breast cancer, study finds
for longer, compared to peers with "perfect skin". Experts claim it's Cryoablation is a viable alternative to traditional surgery in many
because people with acne have a built-in protection against ageing.
early-stage breast cancers
That means things like wrinkles and thinning skin often appear later. A deep-freezing technique known as cryoablation is a viable
Why?
alternative to traditional surgery in many early-stage breast cancers,
This study has taken a look at white blood cells taken from acne New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine researchers find
sufferers and found they had longer protective caps on the ends of
in a new clinical study. The results are published in the Annals of
These caps are called telomeres and are like the plastic tips on shoe Surgical Oncology.
laces which stop them from becoming frayed. This prevents "Minimally invasive techniques are becoming increasingly popular in
chromosomes from deteriorating.
cancer care, and cryoablation represents a valid option for early stage
breast cancer treatment," said Dr. Rache Simmons, chief of breast
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surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and
the Anne K. and Edwin C. Weiskopf Professor of Surgical Oncology
at Weill Cornell Medicine. "The results from this trial are extremely
promising, and we look forward to exploring the technique for a
greater number of patients."
In cryoablation, doctors use ultrasound imaging to insert a thin,
needle-like device into the patient's tumor. Once inside, the device
emits liquid nitrogen, which freezes and destroys the cancerous tissue.
The technique can be performed in an outpatient setting under local
anesthesia, and has been used for many years to treat cancers of the
liver, lung and kidney, as well as noncancerous breast tumors, known
as fibroadenomas.
Physicians have only recently begun using it for early-stage breast
cancer, which is traditionally treated by a combination of radiation
and surgery. The phase II, non-randomized trial examined 86 patients
with 87 cancers at 19 centers across the country. The technique
successfully treated 92 percent of the targeted cancers, and 100
percent less than one centimeter. The primary tumor was removed
from the patients within 28 days of the cryoablation.
The trial marks the first time cryoablation has been studied for the
treatment of early-stage breast cancer in a multicenter study.
"Further study is needed, but cryoablation appears to represent a
unique and patient-friendly option for treatment of some breast
cancers," Dr. Simmons said. "We're excited to see what the future
holds for this technique."
Rache M. Simmons, Karla V. Ballman, Charles Cox, Ned Carp, Jennifer Sabol, Rosa F.
Hwang, Deanna Attai, Michael Sabel, David Nathanson, Andrew Kenler, Linsey Gold, Cary
Kaufman, Linda Han, Aaron Bleznak, J. Stanley Smith, Dennis Holmes, Bruno Fornage,
Carisa Le-Petross, Syed Hoda, Linda McCall, Kelly K. Hunt. A Phase II Trial Exploring the
Success of Cryoablation Therapy in the Treatment of Invasive Breast Carcinoma: Results
from ACOSOG (Alliance) Z1072. Annals of Surgical Oncology, 2016; 23 (8): 2438 DOI:
10.1245/s10434-016-5275-3
http://bit.ly/2dBezKV
Time window to help people who have had a stroke longer
than previously shown
New research finds that removing blood clots has benefits for people
up to 7.3 hours following the onset of a stroke.
Time is of the essence when getting people stricken with acute
ischemic strokes to treatment. And the use of stent retrievers -devices that remove the blood clot like pulling a cork out of a wine
bottle -- has proven to be a breakthrough for removing the lifethreatening blockage of blood flow to the brain.
Current professional guidelines recommend that the procedure be
performed within six hours for people to benefit. But researchers on a
UCLA-led study published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association have found that the procedure has benefits for people up
to 7.3 hours following the onset of a stroke.
"Extending the time window for therapy will let us help more patients,
including patients who were not able to get to a hospital right away
because the stroke started while they were asleep or made them unable
to call for help," said Dr. Jeffrey Saver, director of the UCLA
Comprehensive Stroke Center and the study's lead author.
The researchers also found that for each six-minute delay, there is a 1
percent increase in the proportion of people who end up disabled,
underscoring the need for people to seek treatment as quickly as
possible when they experience symptoms of a stroke. The study
examined the relationship between the onset of the stroke, the amount
of time until the blockage was treated and patient outcomes.
The first coil-shaped clot retriever was invented at UCLA and cleared
for use in 2004. For this study, researchers primarily used a newer
generation of stent retrievers, which were cleared for use in 2012.
First, doctors insert the small mesh tubes through an artery in the leg
to the blockage in the artery that takes blood to the brain. Next, they
open the mesh tubes in the middle of the clot and then extract the stent
and the clot to restore blood flow to the brain.
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The current study combines data from five clinical trials involving a
total of 1,287 people, including the SWIFT PRIME trial led by Saver,
that show these devices improved outcomes for people with acute
ischemic strokes due to large vessel blockage. The researchers
analyzed the relationship between time from onset of the blockage to
treatment and outcome among these patients.
The researchers found that people treated earlier with the retrievers
plus standard medical therapy were less likely to be disabled three
months after surgery than people who only received medical therapy.
Outcomes were the best if the procedure was done within the first two
hours of a stroke, but those treated up to 7.3 hours after a stroke
continued to show a lesser benefit.
Earlier treatment is better than later treatment to restore blood flow
and prevent or limit damage to the brain, Saver noted.
"It is important for the public to know the critically important
relationship between time to treatment and outcome, so they know to
activate the 911 system as soon as possible when they detect stroke
symptoms in themselves or friends, family and co-workers," he said.
"And it is important to reorganize regional systems of stroke care to
ensure that ambulances transport appropriate patients to hospitals that
perform this procedure quickly and safely."
The people in these trials were seen at mostly academic medical
centers, so the question remains as to whether these same results can
be achieved at non-academically affiliated medical centers. Other
elements that could skew the results include differences in trial entry
criteria and patient characteristics, and that these results may not apply
to people who did not qualify for the trials.
In future studies, the researchers plan to use brain imaging techniques
to determine if it is possible to identify a specific, smaller group of
people who can benefit from the clot retrieval therapy seven to 24
hours after stroke onset, said Dr. Reza Jahan, professor of radiology
and neurosurgery at UCLA, and a co-author of the study.
The five trials were funded by European and Canadian government
agencies and by companies that make retrieval devices. This pooled
analysis was funded by Medtronic, a maker of the retriever devices.
The funding went to the University of Calgary, which collaborated on
this study.
Jeffrey L. Saver, Mayank Goyal, Aad van der Lugt, Bijoy K. Menon, Charles B. L. M. Majoie,
Diederik W. Dippel, Bruce C. Campbell, Raul G. Nogueira, Andrew M. Demchuk, Alejandro
Tomasello, Pere Cardona, Thomas G. Devlin, Donald F. Frei, Richard du Mesnil de
Rochemont, Olvert A. Berkhemer, Tudor G. Jovin, Adnan H. Siddiqui, Wim H. van Zwam,
Stephen M. Davis, Carlos Castaño, Biggya L. Sapkota, Puck S. Fransen, Carlos Molina,
Robert J. van Oostenbrugge, Ángel Chamorro, Hester Lingsma, Frank L. Silver, Geoffrey A.
Donnan, Ashfaq Shuaib, Scott Brown, Bruce Stouch, Peter J. Mitchell, Antoni Davalos, Yvo B.
W. E. M. Roos, Michael D. Hill. Time to Treatment With Endovascular Thrombectomy and
Outcomes From Ischemic Stroke: A Meta-analysis. JAMA, 2016; 316 (12): 1279 DOI:
10.1001/jama.2016.13647
http://bbc.in/2dQSTte
One in 10 children has 'Aids defence'
A 10th of children have a "monkey-like" immune system that stops
them developing Aids, a study suggests.
By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News website
The study, in Science Translational Medicine, found the children's
immune systems were "keeping calm", which prevented them being
wiped out.
An untreated HIV infection will kill 60% of children within two and a
half years, but the equivalent infection in monkeys is not fatal. The
findings could lead to new immune-based therapies for HIV infection.
The virus eventually wipes out the immune system, leaving the body
vulnerable to other infections, what is known as acquired human
immunodeficiency syndrome (Aids).
The researchers analysed the blood of 170 children from South Africa
who had HIV, had never had antiretroviral therapy and yet had not
developed Aids. Tests showed they had tens of thousands of human
immunodeficiency viruses in every millilitre of their blood.
This would normally send their immune system into overdrive, trying
to fight the infection, or simply make them seriously ill, but neither
had happened.
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Keep calm and carry on
Prof Philip Goulder, one of the researchers from the University of
Oxford, told the BBC: "Essentially, their immune system is ignoring
the virus as far as possible. "Waging war against the virus is in most
cases the wrong thing to do."
Counter-intuitively, not attacking the virus seems to save the immune
system. HIV kills white blood cells - the warriors of the immune
system. And when the body's defences go into overdrive, even more
of them can be killed by chronic levels of inflammation.
Prof Goulder said: "One of the things that comes out of this study is
that HIV disease is not so much to do with HIV, but with the immune
response to it."
For scientists, the way the 10% of children cope with the virus has
striking similarities to the way more than 40 non-human primate
species cope with simian immunodeficiency virus or SIV. They have
had hundreds of thousands of years to evolve ways to tackle the
infection. "Natural selection has worked in these cases, and the
mechanism is very similar to the one in these kids that don't progress,"
Prof Goulder said.
War or peace?
This defence against Aids is almost unique to children. Adult humans'
immune systems tend to go all-out to finish off the virus in a
campaign that nearly always ends in failure. Children have a relatively
tolerant immune system, which becomes more aggressive in
adulthood - chickenpox, for example, is far more severe in adults due
to the way the immune system reacts. But this does mean that as the
protected children age and their immune system matures, there is a
risk of them developing Aids. Some do, some remain Aids-free.
Dr Ann Chahroudi and Dr Guido Silvestri, from Emory University in
the US, said the study may have found the "very earliest signs of
coevolution of HIV in humans". In a commentary, they added: "It is
not known whether it would be clinically safe for these newly
identified HIV infected paediatric non-progressors to remain off-
therapy. "This assessment is further complicated by the fact that
prevention of HIV transmission to sexual partners becomes relevant in
adolescence."
People with HIV can have normal life-expectancy if they have access
to antiretroviral drugs. But their super-heated immune system never
returns to normal, and they face greater risks of cardiovascular disease,
cancer and dementia.
Prof Goulder believes these findings in children could ultimately help
rebalance the immune system in all HIV patients.
He told the BBC: "We may be identifying an entirely new pathway by
studying kids that in the longer term could be translated to new
treatments for all HIV infected people."
http://bbc.in/2dyNFxY
Common painkillers 'increase heart failure risk'
Taking a common kind of painkiller is linked to an increased risk of
heart failure, a study suggests.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen
and naproxen and diclofenac, are commonly used to treat pain and
inflammation.
The British Medical Journal study looked at 10 million people, aged
77 on average, who took the drugs. UK experts said the findings had
little relevance for most under-65s but were a possible concern for
elderly patients.
The study analysed data for the 10 million users - who were from the
UK, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany - and compared them with
people who did not take the drugs.
The researchers, from University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy, found
taking NSAIDs increased the risk of being taken to hospital with heart
failure by 19%.
Since most people in the study were older - and those on NSAIDs
were, in general, in poorer health - UK experts said the findings had
very little relevance for most under-65s but may be a concern for
elderly patients.
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'Use with caution'
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) said patients should be on the
lowest dose possible of NSAIDs for the shortest possible time.
Prof Peter Weissberg, medical director at the BHF, said: "This large
observational study reinforces previous research showing that some
NSAIDs, a group of drugs commonly taken by patients with joint
problems, increase the risk of developing heart failure.
"It has been known for some years now that such drugs need to be
used with caution in patients with, or at high risk of, heart disease.
"This applies mostly to those who take them on a daily basis rather
than only occasionally.
"Since heart and joint problems often coexist, particularly in the
elderly, this study serves as a reminder to doctors to consider carefully
how they prescribe NSAIDs, and to patients that they should only take
the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time. "They should
discuss their treatment with their GP if they have any concerns."
Younger patients
Helen Williams, consultant pharmacist for cardiovascular disease at
the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, told BBC Radio 4's Today
programme that the focus needed to be on older patients with
conditions or diseases that might put them at increased risk of heart
failure anyway. "Hypertension, diabetes, maybe kidney problems - it's
in those patients when we add these drugs on top that there might be a
small increase in their risk," she said.
Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "The consequence is
that it is of very little relevance to most people below age 65 taking
painkillers, but in the very elderly, say, above 80, that the effects are
of more relevance."
Ms Williams said that younger patients who took short courses of
ibuprofen, for example, should not be worried. However, she did warn
against young people taking the drugs regularly. "If you take a very
occasional course - it's like most people will do for aches and pains,
sports injuries etcetera - then there's no need to worry."
But she added: "I think I would say if you're a young person who is
regularly going to buy these drugs, and effectively taking them all the
time, you probably should be supervised by a clinician because there
are other issues with these drugs and we might want to keep an eye,
for example, on your kidneys."
Ms Williams also said it was important to use over-the-counter
painkillers for the right reasons. She said: "Ibuprofen are antiinflammatory drugs so if you've damaged your muscles where there's
likely to be inflammation, then ibuprofen might be appropriate.
"If you've got a headache, it's unlikely that there's going to be an
inflammation issue and paracetamol is fine."
http://bit.ly/2cL5LMd
Consumption of a bioactive compound from Neem plant
could significantly suppress development of prostate
cancer
Oral administration of nimbolide, over 12 weeks shows reduction of
prostate tumor size by up to 70 per cent and decrease in tumor
metastasis by up to 50 per cent, report investigators.
A team of international researchers led by Associate Professor
Gautam Sethi from the Department of Pharmacology at the Yong Loo
Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore
(NUS) has found that nimbolide, a bioactive terpenoid compound
derived from Azadirachta indica or more commonly known as the
neem plant, could reduce the size of prostate tumor by up to 70 per
cent and suppress its spread or metastasis by half.
Prostate cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers
worldwide. However, currently available therapies for metastatic
prostate cancer are only marginally effective. Hence, there is a need
for more novel treatment alternatives and options.
"Although the diverse anti-cancer effects of nimbolide have been
reported in different cancer types, its potential effects on prostate
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cancer initiation and progression have not been demonstrated in
scientific studies. In this research, we have demonstrated that
nimbolide can inhibit tumor cell viability -- a cellular process that
directly affects the ability of a cell to proliferate, grow, divide, or
repair damaged cell components -- and induce programmed cell death
in prostate cancer cells," said Assoc Prof Sethi.
Nimbolide: promising effects on prostate cancer
Cell invasion and migration are key steps during tumor metastasis.
The NUS-led study revealed that nimbolide can significantly suppress
cell invasion and migration of prostate cancer cells, suggesting its
ability to reduce tumor metastasis.
The researchers observed that upon the 12 weeks of administering
nimbolide, the size of prostate cancer tumor was reduced by as much
as 70 per cent and its metastasis decreased by about 50 per cent,
without exhibiting any significant adverse effects.
"This is possible because a direct target of nimbolide in prostate
cancer is glutathione reductase, an enzyme which is responsible for
maintaining the antioxidant system that regulates the STAT3 gene in
the body. The activation of the STAT3 gene has been reported to
contribute to prostate tumor growth and metastasis," explained Assoc
Prof Sethi. "We have found that nimbolide can substantially inhibit
STAT3 activation and thereby abrogating the growth and metastasis
of prostate tumor," he added.
The findings of the study were published in the April 2016 issue of the
scientific journal Antioxidants & Redox Signaling. This work was
carried out in collaboration with Professor Goh Boon Cher of Cancer
Science Institute of Singapore at NUS, Professor Hui Kam Man of
National Cancer Centre Singapore and Professor Ahn Kwang Seok of
Kyung Hee University.
Neem -- The medicinal plant
The neem plant belongs to the mahogany tree family that is originally
native to India and the Indian sub-continent. It has been part of
traditional Asian medicine for centuries and is typically used in Indian
Ayurvedic medicine. Today, neem leaves and bark have been
incorporated into many personal care products such as soaps,
toothpaste, skincare and even dietary supplements.
Future Research
The team is looking to embark on a genome-wide screening or to
perform a large-scale study of proteins to analyse the side-effects and
determine other potential molecular targets of nimbolide. They are
also keen to investigate the efficacy of combinatory regimen of
nimbolide and approved drugs such as docetaxel and enzalutamide for
future prostate cancer therapy.
Jingwen Zhang, Kwang Seok Ahn, Chulwon Kim, Muthu K. Shanmugam, Kodappully
Sivaraman Siveen, Frank Arfuso, Ramar Perumal Samym, Amudha Deivasigamanim, Lina
Hsiu Kim Lim, Lingzhi Wang, Boon Cher Goh, Alan Prem Kumar, Kam Man Hui, Gautam
Sethi. Nimbolide-Induced Oxidative Stress Abrogates STAT3 Signaling Cascade and Inhibits
Tumor Growth in Transgenic Adenocarcinoma of Mouse Prostate Model. Antioxidants &
Redox Signaling, 2016; 24 (11): 575 DOI: 10.1089/ars.2015.6418
http://bbc.in/2d7W8Z5
Prescribing holidays 'could help fight infections'
Scientists are investigating whether prescribing holidays, music or a
change of scene might boost our immune system and help us to fight
off disease.
In tests on mice, they discovered that sprucing up their living space,
with a running wheel, toys and a colourful box, did wonders for their
T cells. These cells are essential for immunity and help to protect
against disease. The Queen Mary University of London researchers
said the same approach should be tested on humans.
In their study, the mice living in the enriched surroundings of a larger
cage with lots of stimulation - as opposed to a plain, old cage of
sawdust - were found to be better prepared for fighting infections.
Higher levels of molecules which are good at responding to infections
were found in their white blood cells.
'Holiday resort'
Prof Fulvio D'Acquisto, lead study researcher from QMUL, said:
"This effect is remarkable because we haven't given them any drugs.
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"All we've done is change their housing conditions. "You could say
that we've just put them in their equivalent of a holiday resort for two
weeks and let them enjoy their new and stimulating surroundings."
In another study on mice with disease, he discovered that very small
changes in bedding had an impact on their health. Giving them better
quality blankets and more comfortable sleeping conditions meant their
illness was shortened from four days to two days.
When it comes to the human immune system, how the environment
we live in influences the body's primary defence against disease is not
known. But it is thought that factors such as pollution, location,
psychological state and social status could all play a role.
Body boost
Prof D'Acquisto says research shows that there is a link between
emotional response and immune response. No-one yet knows how this
works but one theory is that heightened emotion makes bone marrow
perform better, which in turn receives more nutrients, boosting the
body's immune system.
He says we should all be thinking about what we can do to moderate
our own emotions - and not pretend we are all the same. "We
shouldn't flatten out personality. "We should acknowledge the
differences and ask - what can I do to make me happier? Should I
change my living conditions? "We should really ask what's best for
us."
Whether it's a walk on the beach, listening to a piece of music or more
comfortable bedding in hospital, Prof D'Acquisto wants to find out if
patients' health and well-being could be improved by making small
changes to our environment.
http://bit.ly/2cWU20A
In early August the Drug Enforcement Administration declined to
reclassify marijuana under the federal Controlled Substances Act. The
drug is currently listed on Schedule I, meaning that it is viewed as
having “no currently accepted medical use in treatment” and is
therefore technically banned by federal law. The proposed change
would have moved it to Schedule II, where it would join morphine,
opium and codeine. That would make marijuana potentially available
by prescription nationwide. Such a change would have been good for
patients and scientists, and it would have represented a big step toward
resolving the hypocritical mess that characterizes current law.
Despite many people's assumptions to the contrary, the existing law
does not ban scientific investigation into the harms and benefits of the
drug. It's true that scientists studying marijuana must jump through
multiple bureaucratic and regulatory hoops, and one of these just
became a bit easier to navigate. Currently researchers who want to
study the drug must get it from the University of Mississippi, which is
the only university now permitted to grow marijuana plants for
research purposes. When the DEA announced in August that it would
not reschedule marijuana, it did say that it would let other institutions
apply for permission to start growing the plants as well. That was a
step in the right direction—but it's not enough.
Despite the regulatory barriers, dozens of scientists—myself
included—have been engaged in research on the harms and benefits of
marijuana for decades, and the evidence shows that the drug has many
helpful therapeutic uses. For example, it stimulates appetite in HIVpositive patients, which could be a lifesaver for someone suffering
from AIDS wasting syndrome. It is also useful in the treatment of
neuropathic pain, chronic pain, and spasticity caused by multiple
The DEA’s Decision to Keep Pot Restrictions Perpetuates sclerosis.
Therapeutic benefits such as these have compelled citizens to vote
Hypocrisy
Keeping existing federal rules in place is an exercise in hypocrisy repeatedly, over the past two decades, to legalize medical marijuana at
the state level. Today 25 states and the District of Columbia allow
By Carl Hart | Scientific American October 2016 Issue
patients to take the drug for specific conditions. And yet federal law
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still technically forbids the use of medical marijuana. The
inconsistency of federal law with reality at the state level—and with
the growing body of research demonstrating the benefits of the
substance—makes marijuana's Schedule I status seem like medical
and bureaucratic hypocrisy.
There is now a general sentiment among scientists that the failed war
on drugs has biased the DEA against acknowledging any therapeutic
potential for marijuana. The petition to reschedule the substance that
the agency responded to this past summer was five years old. It is hard
to avoid the impression that DEA leadership was stalling, hoping that
the public would simply forget about the issue. Last year DEA acting
administrator Chuck Rosenberg described the very concept of medical
marijuana as “a joke.”
Perhaps it's also a joke that a law-enforcement agency has the final
word on a medical issue.
As a scientist and educator, I am worried that our illogical,
unscientific scheduling of marijuana is costing us credibility with
young people and with those seeking treatments for a variety of
conditions. I am further concerned that people most in need of our
help and advice will reject other drug-related information from
“official” sources, even when it is accurate. And when patients reject
official advice and proved medicine, they become more susceptible to
quackery. It's time we lessened the outsized influence of a lawenforcement agency on medical decisions and started to rebuild our
credibility as scientists on the issue of marijuana.
http://bit.ly/2dkll8i
lacks the Y chromosome, taking us a step further toward
understanding sex differentiation.
In most placental mammals, the Y chromosome induces male
differentiation during development, whereas embryos without it
become female.
The sex-determining gene SRY is present on the Y chromosome and
induces other regulatory genes that suppress female differentiation.
The Amami spiny rat (Tokudaia osimensis) is exceptional as it lacks a
Y chromosome and thus the SRY gene, raising the question of why
male differentiation can still occur.
Tomofumi Otake and Asako Kuroiwa of Hokkaido University in
Japan performed gene mapping to determine the chromosomal
locations of sex-related genes in the T. osimensis genome. They then
compared its nucleotide and amino acid sequences with those of the
mouse and rat. Furthermore, using cultured cells, they examined how
the sex-related genes were regulated.
SRY has been well-investigated in previous research and is known to
turn on a range of regulatory genes such as Sox9 and AMH that play
an important role in male differentiation.
The team's results suggest that, even though there is no SRY gene in T.
osimensis, the regulatory genes that normally turns on are present and
operate as they do in other placental mammals.
"We speculate that there is an unknown gene that acts as a substitute
for SRY in T. osimensis," says Professor Kuroiwa. "The mammalian
Y chromosome has been shrinking through an evolutionary process by
reducing the number of its genes, and some scientists think that it will
completely disappear at some point. I hope our research will help in
How to be a male without the Y chromosome
Key sex-determining genes continue to operate in a mammalian the understanding of the sex determination mechanism that is
species that lacks the Y chromosome, taking us a step further toward independent on the Y chromosome and its evolutionary aspect."
Tomofumi Otake, Asato Kuroiwa. Molecular mechanism of male differentiation is conserved
understanding sex differentiation.
in the SRY-absent mammal, Tokudaia osimensis. Scientific Reports, 2016; 6: 32874 DOI:
Hokkaido University researchers have revealed that key sex- 10.1038/srep32874
determining genes continue to operate in a mammalian species that
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http://bit.ly/2dDrdo6
Universal flu vaccine designed by scientists
Scientists have designed a new generation of universal flu vaccines
to protect against future global pandemics that could kill millions.
Researchers have devised two universal vaccines; a USA-specific
vaccine with coverage of 95% of known US influenza strains; and a
universal vaccine with coverage of 88% of known flu strains globally.
An international team of scientists have designed a new generation of
universal flu vaccines to protect against future global pandemics that
could kill millions.
The vaccine could give protection for up to 88% of known flu strains
worldwide in a single shot, spelling the end of the winter flu season.
The collaboration involving the universities of Lancaster, Aston and
Complutense in Madrid have applied ground-breaking computational
techniques to design the vaccine in a study published in the journal
Bioinformatics. The researchers have devised two universal vaccines;
· a USA-specific vaccine with coverage of 95% of known US
influenza strains
· a universal vaccine with coverage of 88% of known flu strains
globally
Dr Derek Gatherer of Lancaster University said: "Every year we have
a round of flu vaccination, where we choose a recent strain of flu as
the vaccine, hoping that it will protect against next year's strains. We
know this method is safe, and that it works reasonably well most of
the time.
"However, sometimes it doesn't work -- as in the H3N2 vaccine
failure in winter 2014-2015 -- and even when it does it is immensely
expensive and labour-intensive. Also, these yearly vaccines give us no
protection at all against potential future pandemic flu."
Previous pandemics include the "Spanish flu" of 1918, and the two
subsequent pandemics of 1957 and 1968, which led to millions of
deaths.
Even today, the World Health Organisation says that annual flu
epidemics are estimated to cause up to half a million deaths globally.
Dr Gatherer said: "It doesn't have to be this way. Based on our
knowledge of the flu virus and the human immune system, we can use
computers to design the components of a vaccine that gives much
broader and longer-lasting protection."
Dr Pedro Reche of Complutense University said: "A universal flu
vaccine is potentially within reach. The components of this vaccine
would be short flu virus fragments -- called epitopes -- that are already
known to be recognized by the immune system. Our collaboration has
found a way to select epitopes reaching full population coverage.
Dr Darren Flower of Aston University said: "Epitope-based vaccines
aren't new, but most reports have no experimental validation. We have
turned the problem on its head and only use previously-tested epitopes.
This allows us to get the best of both worlds, designing a vaccine with
a very high likelihood of success." The team are now actively seeking
partners in the pharmaceutical industry to synthesize their vaccine for
a laboratory proof-of-principle test.
Qamar M. Sheikh, Derek Gatherer, Pedro A Reche, Darren R. Flower. Towards the
knowledge-based design of universal influenza epitope ensemble vaccines. Bioinformatics,
2016; btw399 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btw399
http://bit.ly/2dox9CK
Genetically engineered crops are safe, review of studies
finds
Genetically engineered (GE) crops are no different from
conventional crops in terms of their risks to human health and the
environment, according to a report published in May 2016 by the
U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Leland Glenna, associate professor of rural sociology and science,
technology and society in Penn State's College of Agricultural
Sciences, served on the committee that authored the report.
"The study committee found no substantiated evidence of a difference
in risks to human health between currently commercialized GE crops - specifically soybean, maize and cotton -- and conventionally bred
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crops, nor did it find conclusive cause-and-effect evidence of
environmental problems from the GE crops," said Glenna. "These
findings should not be interpreted to mean that there are not still many
challenges related to both conventional and GE crops, just that
currently available GE crops and conventional crops are not different
in terms of their risks to human health and the environment."
Glenna, a sociologist who studies how social institutions influence
scientific research agendas and who, for the past 15 years, has studied
the social impacts of agricultural science and technology, noted that
GE crops commonly are portrayed either as the solution to social and
economic problems or as the cause of them.
"GE crops are also commonly presented as though there are only two
sides to this debate: either you are for them or against them," he said.
"But new technologies bring both promises and perils; what seems
promising to some might seem perilous to others.
"However, there is still insufficient research to make conclusive
statements on the social and economic impacts of GE crop
technologies. I hope that those who read and discuss this report do not
shoehorn it into the existing paradigm but, instead, recognize the
complexity and nuances of GE crops."
The researchers used data published during the last two decades from
more than 900 research and other publications to evaluate the positive
and negative effects of GE crops -- crops that have been engineered to
resist insects or herbicides. The scientists also heard from 80 diverse
speakers and read more than 700 comments from members of the
public to expand their understanding of GE crop issues.
Nearly 180 million hectares of GE crops were planted globally in
2015, roughly 12 percent of the world's planted cropland that year.
According to the report, Bt crops, those that contain an insect-resistant
gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, comprise a large
segment of GE cropland. The researchers found that from 1996 to
2015, the use of Bt maize and cotton contributed to a reduction in
synthetic insecticide use and in crop losses. Some pest-insect
populations dropped; however, insect biodiversity increased overall.
Insect resistance to Bt proteins was slow to develop only when the
crops produced a dose of Bt protein that was large enough to kill
insects. Damaging levels of resistance did evolve in some species
when resistance-management strategies were not followed.
The team found that the use of herbicide-resistant (glyphosateresistant) crops contributed to greater crop yield by reducing weed
pressure. When such crops first were adopted, total kilograms of
herbicide applied per hectare of crop per year declined, although the
decreases generally have not been sustained. Some weed species have
evolved resistance to glyphosate; however, the team noted that
delaying such resistance is possible with integrated weed management.
To examine the human health effects of GE crops and foods, the team
examined animal experimental studies and found a lack of evidence
that animals are harmed by eating foods derived from GE crops.
"Many people are concerned that consuming GE foods may cause
cancer, obesity and disorders such as autism spectrum and allergies,"
Glenna said. "However, the committee examined epidemiological
datasets over time from the United States and Canada, where GE food
has been consumed since the late 1990s, and similar datasets from the
United Kingdom and western Europe, where GE food is not widely
consumed. We found no differences among countries in specific
health problems."
The team also found that economic outcomes of GE crops have been
favorable for most producers who have adopted these crops. However,
the cost of GE seed may limit the adoption of GE crops by smaller,
resource-poor farm holders. Furthermore, economic benefits tend to
accrue for early adopters. The team concluded that enduring and
widespread use of GE crops will depend on institutional support and
access to profitable local and global markets.
The report can be downloaded from the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine website: http://nas-sites.org/gecrops/
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http://bbc.in/2dxzYDj
Cancer clusters at nuclear sites 'not linked to radiation'
An investigation into clusters of cancer cases around Sellafield and
Dounreay nuclear sites has found they were very unlikely to have
been caused by radiation exposure.
A report from the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the
Environment (Comare) said the clusters had gone.
It also found no evidence of a spike in thyroid cancers following the
Windscale reactor fire in 1957.
The committee said rural population mixing may have been a factor.
Comare - an expert Department of Health committee - now wants
more research to be carried out into the role that infection plays in the
development of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
It has been suggested that an infectious agent could be introduced into
rural communities by an influx of people, triggering a rise in cases of
these rare cancers.
Around 500 children under 14 develop leukaemia every year in the
UK, making it the most common cancer among children.
Cluster cases
Previous reports found an increased incidence of leukaemia and nonHodgkin lymphoma in children and young adults under 25 years of
age living in Seascale, a village near Sellafield on the west coast of
Cumbria, and around Dounreay, on the north coast of Scotland.
These clusters of cases occurred between 1963 and 1990 - but the
committee's report concluded that radiation doses from the plants were
too small to be the reason behind the excess cases.
No increase in cases and no new cases have been reported in children
living close to either site between 1991 and 2006. However, the cause
of the clusters of leukaemia around Sellafield and Dounreay is still not
clear.
The report also looked at the incidence of thyroid cancer around
Sellafield, after high excess rates were found in Cumbria in those born
between 1954 and 1958.
But any link with radioactive releases from the Windscale reactor fire
in 1957 has been ruled out after similarly high rates were found for
those born after the fire, who would not have been affected by the
iodine gases released.
Prof Alex Elliott, past-chairman of Comare, said regulations around
routine radiation processes at nuclear installations were very tight.
He said: "People shouldn't worry about cancer risk from radiation."
But he was concerned that data on national childhood cancers should
be protected and continue to be made available to researchers studying
disease rates.
http://bit.ly/2dDxlwA
Scientists find lethal vulnerability in treatment-resistant
lung cancer
Researchers working in four labs at UT Southwestern Medical
Center have found a chink in a so-called "undruggable" lung
cancer's armor -- and located an existing drug that might provide a
treatment.
The study, published this week in Nature, describes how the drug
Selinexor (KPT-330) killed lung cancer cells and shrank tumors in
mice when used against cancers driven by the aggressive and difficultto-treat KRAS cancer gene. Selinexor is already in clinical trials for
treatment of other types of cancer, primarily leukemia and lymphoma
but also gynecological, brain, prostate, and head and neck cancers.
Lung cancer is the No. 1 cancer killer in the U.S., responsible for
more than 158,000 deaths a year, according to the National Cancer
Institute (NCI), and the KRAS oncogene is believed to be responsible
for about 25 percent of all lung cancer cases. The 5-year survival rate
for lung cancer is below 18 percent.
Cancers caused by the KRAS mutation have been a target for
researchers since the mutation was discovered in humans in 1982. But,
due in part to this oncogene's almost impervious spherical shape, no
one was able to find an opening for attack, said Dr. Pier Scaglioni,
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Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern and a Robin E. Frink, Boning Gao, Michael Roth, John D. Minna, Dirk Daelemans, Ignacio I.
Wistuba, Bruce A. Posner, Pier Paolo Scaglioni, Michael A. White. XPO1-dependent nuclear
contributing author to the study.
export is a druggable vulnerability in KRAS-mutant lung cancer. Nature, 2016; DOI:
Dr. Michael A. White, Adjunct Professor of Cell Biology and senior 10.1038/nature19771
author of the study, assembled multiple research teams and used
http://bit.ly/2cX15Xh
robotic machines to create and sift through trays with thousands of Gary Johnson's 'Aleppo Moments': Why We Get Brain
cancer cell/potential drug combinations to uncover the KRAS
Freeze
mutation's weakness.
In an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Libertarian
The scientists found that targeting and inactivating the protein XPO1, presidential candidate Gary Johnson couldn't come up with a single
found in the cell nucleus and used to transport gene products from the
name when posed the question, "Who's your favorite foreign
nucleus to the cytoplasm, killed most of the KRAS mutant cancer cells.
leader?"
"We found that inhibiting the XPO1 gene kills lung cancer cells that
By Talal Al-Khatib, Discovery News | September 30, 2016 12:15pm
are dependent on KRAS," Dr. Scaglioni said. "The unexpected In a callback to an earlier televised appearance in which Johnson
coincidence here is that there is an existing drug that will inhibit struggled with recall, the candidate himself admitted he was having an
XPO1."
"Aleppo moment" and a "brain freeze," citing the "former president of
"We know that this drug hits the XPO1 target in people," added Dr. Mexico," but unable to name him. With an assist from a member of
White, also a research executive at Pfizer Inc. "But we will not know the audience, Johnson did eventually come up with former Mexican
whether the drug will be effective until clinical trials are done, which president Vicente Fox.
should be completed in about two years."
We've all had memory lapses during inopportune moments, but what
Based on the results of this study, Selinexor, developed by causes them? Memory can often let us down during stressful or
Karyopharm Therapeutics, will be the focus of a multicenter lung anxiety-inducing events, and it gets worse with age, according to a
cancer clinical trial led by UT Southwestern's Dr. David Gerber, 2014 study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Associate Professor of Internal Medicine. That trial is expected to Spikes in levels of cortisol, the naturally occurring hormone that
open for enrollment next year.
surges when we are stressed, can lead to memory problems as we get
In preclinical results from cancer cells and mouse models in the older, found a team of University of Iowa researchers. Although
Nature study, 83 percent of the KRAS mutant lung cancers responded cortisol is important to survival, long-term stress negatively impacts
to Selinexor. The study found the remaining 17 percent of lung the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain linked to short-term memory.
cancers could be killed by adding a second drug to inhibit YAP1, a When an individual endures repeated, high levels of stress for a long
gene known to be involved in the promotion of several other cancers. period of time, elevated levels of cortisol can lead lead to a shrinkage
Here too, there was an existing drug, Verteporfin, which appeared to and eventual loss of synapses, connections in the brain that allow us to
be effective in blocking YAP1. Verteporfin is currently used to treat process, store and recall information, what researchers describe as a
blood vessel disorders in the eye.
"weathering of the brain."
Jimi Kim, Elizabeth McMillan, Hyun Seok Kim, Niranjan Venkateswaran, Gurbani Makkar,
Even over a shorter time period, stress can impair our ability to learn
Jaime Rodriguez-Canales, Pamela Villalobos, Jasper Edgar Neggers, Saurabh Mendiratta,
Shuguang Wei, Yosef Landesman, William Senapedis, Erkan Baloglu, Chi-Wan B. Chow, as well as recall memories, found a 2008 study by researchers from
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the University of California - Irvine. A shorter time frame doesn't just
mean months or weeks, but even a few hours of stress can inhibit
brain-cell communication. Instead of cortisol, the researchers in this
study identified corticotropin releasing hormones (CRH), activated
during periods of acute stress, as the culprit.
CRH limit the way in which synapses collect and store memories in
the hippocampus, a region of the brain that is the center learning and
memory. For this earlier study, the researchers observed that the
release of cortisol led to the disintegration of dendritic spines, tiny
protrustions on neurons that receive synaptic input.
Another possible culprit for an occasionally faulty memory is sleep
deprivation. Political candidates are notoriously busy, and often
struggle to get enough sleep as a result. Sleep deprivation harms
memory, and research published as recently as last month backs that
up.
According to a study in mice published in the journal eLife, just five
hours of sleep deprivation is enough to lead to a loss in connectivity of
neurons in the brain. The researchers observed that losing sleep
reduced the length and density of dendrites in the hippocampus. A
three-hour catch up nap, however, was enough to reverse the damage.
http://nyti.ms/2dm7vyT
All of the infections were the result of travel, most commonly to the
Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. About 100 of the cases
occurred in June and July alone. The report represents just a fraction
of the actual number of children in the continental United States
infected with Zika.
The children, aged 1 month to 17 years, were initially identified
because they had symptoms of infection; only those who became ill
were included in the research. Yet most people who are infected have
no symptoms at all.
The virus can profoundly injure developing fetuses, leading to a range
of birth defects including irreparable brain damage, hearing loss and
eye defects. But the C.D.C. researchers, reassuringly, found no serious
injury among infected children.
Typically, these children got only mildly ill: 129 had a rash, C.D.C.
researchers found, while half were feverish and a quarter had red eyes
or joint pain. One hundred and eleven had two or more of the four
main symptoms.
Five teenagers, ages 16 and 17, were pregnant when they developed
symptoms, highlighting the need for sexually active teenagers to
protect themselves from Zika, especially after travel to affected places.
None of these children developed a kind of temporary paralysis called
Guillain-Barré syndrome, which may be triggered by Zika infection.
Children Who Get Zika After Birth Tend Not to Fall
Older adults are generally thought to be at higher risk for GuillainSeriously Ill, Study Finds
Serious complications are rare among children infected with the Barré. But at the height of the Zika epidemic in Brazil, officials
Zika virus after birth, federal health researchers concluded in a reported that a few children had developed the paralysis, as well as
study published on Friday — a rare bright spot in the unfolding meningoencephalitis, a dangerous inflammation of the brain and
spinal cord.
story of the epidemic.
Still, the C.D.C. urged health care providers to test children with
By CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. SEPT.
About 160 teenagers and toddlers infected with Zika virus have been suspected Zika infection, to notify state health departments of all cases,
reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 2015. and to remain vigilant for neurological complications even in the very
The agency’s new study marks the largest survey yet of laboratory- young.
No child died in the C.D.C. study, but two were hospitalized. A fourconfirmed cases in children.
year-old with a fever, a cough, and trouble eating or drinking spent
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three days under observation. A one-year-old with a cough and rash
spent a night in a hospital.
Also on Friday, the C.D.C. announced that men who have visited
areas in which the Zika is circulating should wait six months before
having unprotected sex in order to avoid transmitting the virus, even if
they have not had symptoms.
The C.D.C. had recommended that men refrain for six months if they
had experienced symptoms of Zika infection, but only eight weeks if
they had not. The change brings the C.D.C.’s advice in line with
guidelines from the World Health Organization.
The new guidelines also suggest that both women and men in couples
planning a pregnancy in the near future consider avoiding travel to
areas where Zika is being transmitted, and that they use condoms or
abstain from sex for at least six months after travel before trying to
conceive.
The Zika virus lingers in semen, the reproductive fluid that contains
sperm. On Thursday, French researchers reported that the virus can
penetrate individual spermatozoa.
The study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, found the
virus in about 4 percent of the spermatozoa of a 32-year-old man who
had had Zika symptoms more than four months earlier.
The discovery did not change the likelihood that the man could pass
on the virus through sex, since he also had virus in his semen, the
researchers from Toulouse University Hospital said. But the finding
has implications for in vitro fertilization. Sperm donations from men
with some viruses, including H.I.V., can be “washed” by removing the
seminal fluid, since the virus does not penetrate the sperm.
Although it is unknown whether the Zika virus inside the man’s sperm
is infectious, the researchers said, the discovery suggests that fertility
centers will need to screen donations carefully for the virus.
Another brief report in The Lancet by researchers in Madrid described
a case in which a 53-year-old man who had a vasectomy in 2007
apparently infected his wife with Zika.
The case suggests that the virus penetrates the prostate, seminal
vesicles or bulbourethral glands, which together produce pre-ejaculate
and seminal fluid.
http://nyti.ms/2dDmp6B
New Drug for Severe Eczema Is Successful in 2 New
Trials
Results of two large clinical trials of a new drug offered hope to
aboutt 1.6 million adult Americans with an uncontrolled, moderateto-severe form of atopic dermatitis, which is a type of eczema
By GINA KOLATA OCT. 1, 2016
The disease is characterized by an itching, oozing rash that can cover
almost all of the skin. The constant itch, to say nothing of the
disfigurement, can be so unbearable that many patients consider
suicide. There has never been a safe and effective treatment.
On Saturday, the results of two large clinical trials of a new drug
offered hope to the estimated 1.6 million adult Americans with an
uncontrolled, moderate-to-severe form of the disease, atopic
dermatitis, which is a type of eczema.
Most patients who got the active drug, dupilumab, instead of a
placebo reported that the itching began to wane within two weeks and
was gone in a few months, as their skin began to clear. Nearly 40
percent of participants getting the drug saw all or almost all of their
rash disappear.
For some, relief was almost instantaneous.
“I knew immediately I was on the drug” and not the placebo, said
Daniela Velasco, an event planner in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Within a couple of weeks, the ugly red rash that had covered 90
percent of her body was almost gone. Even better, she said, “for the
first time I didn’t feel any itch at all.”
Before entering the trial, Mrs. Velasco, 36, had seen 40 doctors about
the disease and tried dozens of drugs and treatments, to no avail. To
participate in the study, she spent more than $95,000 to fly to Mount
Sinai in New York on a regular basis and stay in hotels. She realized
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she might get a placebo but also knew that when the study ended
everyone, including the placebo patients, would be able get the drug if
the trial was successful.
The drug blocks two specific molecules of the immune system that are
overproduced in patients with this and some other allergic diseases.
The only side effects were a slight increase in conjunctivitis, an
inflammation of the outer membrane of the eye, and swelling at the
injection site.
“This is a landmark study,” said Dr. Mark Boguniewicz, an atopic
dermatitis expert at National Jewish Health and the University of
Colorado School of Medicine who was not involved with the study.
“For us in atopic dermatitis, we are entering a new era.”
The studies, lasting 16 weeks and involving nearly 1,400 people, were
published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. George D. Yancopoulos, the president and chief scientific officer
at Regeneron, which, in partnership with Sanofi, makes the drug, said
he expects the Food and Drug Administration to rule on dupilumab by
March 29, 2017. The drug’s brand name will be Dupixent. The agency
has given the drug breakthrough status, which provides expedited
development and review of drugs for serious or life-threatening
diseases.
Dr. Yancopoulos declined to speculate on dupilumab’s price, saying
only that it will be “consistent with the value of the drug.” It is a
biologic, the most expensive type of drug, and is injected every two
weeks.
Atopic dermatitis experts said they have longed for a safe and highly
effective treatment. In desperation, some prescribed other drugs offlabel, like powerful immunosuppressants or high doses of steroids,
which are far from ideal because even if they helped, their side effects
can be severe — kidney failure with immunosuppressants, bone loss
and even psychotic breaks with high-dose steroids.
Patients are miserable, Dr. Boguniewicz said. “Our patients and
families haven’t slept through the night, not for days or weeks, but for
months or years.”
Many doctors provide no treatments other than perhaps creams and
ointments that do not stop the itching or soothe the red and weeping
rash, said Dr. Jonathan I. Silverberg of Northwestern University’s
Feinberg School of Medicine and a principal investigator in one of the
studies.
Many sufferers can relate to the plight of the defense lawyer played by
John Turturro in the HBO series “The Night Of.” He suffers from
atopic dermatitis that started on his legs and his feet and later spread
to his neck and head. Like so many patients, he tries treatment after
treatment — bleach baths, covering the rash in Crisco and wrapping it
with plastic wrap, steroids, Chinese medicine. He scratches it with
chopsticks and disgusts people near him. But all to no avail.
Such experiences explain the excitement over the new drug, although
researchers say they would like to see longer-term data.
“What we are seeing are some really impressive efficacy numbers,”
Dr. Silverberg said. “But efficacy alone is not enough. It is the safety
profile that is the real key. Everything we are seeing really looks great.”
Dr. Jon M. Hanifin, a professor of dermatology at Oregon Health and
Science University and founder of the National Eczema Association,
agreed. While not a principal investigator in the study, Dr. Hanifin did
oversee the care of some patients enrolled in it.
“It’s wonderful,” he said. “We walk in the room and patients are
smiling. These patients are the worst of the worst. Their life was
destroyed.”
Dr. Yancopoulos was inspired in part to develop the drug because his
father had severe atopic dermatitis, which he developed shortly after
he got lung cancer at 70.
“More so than the cancer and the chemo, this rash and its horrible itch
started dominating his life and ruining its quality,” Dr. Yancopoulos
said. “Here’s a guy with Stage IIIB lung cancer — basically a death
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sentence — and he is more concerned and miserable about his skin
and his itch.”
One participant in the trial, Lisa Tannebaum, a 53-year-old harpist in
Stamford, Conn., was so thrilled that she wrote a letter to Regeneron
suggesting they use her before and after photographs in
advertisements. She developed a severe form of the disease 14 years
ago and tried everything imaginable in conventional and alternative
medicine without relief — specialized diets, immunosuppressive
drugs, special clothing, bleach baths. She even had the gold fillings
removed from her teeth on the theory that they may be causing an
allergic response, but to no avail.
“It was like every day I had poison ivy and fire ants on myself,” she
said. “You don’t sleep at all. You can’t go out, you have staph
infections all the time,” because the skin’s protective barrier is broken
by the rash. “I couldn’t drive my kids to school because the itching
was so bad I couldn’t put my hands on the steering wheel.”
Now, she is performing again and will be playing her harp at Carnegie
Hall on Oct. 30.
Herb Bull, 71, a retired Merck scientist in Westfield, N.J., had mild
atopic dermatitis for years until three years ago, when it took a turn for
the worse. The rash covered his entire body. Sleep was impossible,
itching a constant torment. Even walking was difficult.
“He had weeping lesions all over his body,” said his doctor, Dr.
Emma Guttman-Yassky, a principal investigator in the trial and
professor of dermatology and immunology at Mount Sinai School of
Medicine.
“I thought I might as well give up and die,” Mr. Bull said.
It took months for the drug to work, he said, but when it did, the
change was miraculous. His rash and the itching went away.
The new drug, Mr. Bull said, “saved my life.”
http://bit.ly/2dDyl49
Where Did Satan Come From?
The devil goes by many names — Satan, the Prince of Darkness,
Beelzebub and Lucifer to name a few — but besides this list of
aliases, what do people really know about the brute? That is, how
did the story of Satan originate?
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | October 2, 2016 08:10am ET
Many ancient religions have scriptures detailing the struggle between
good and evil. For instance, in the Zoroastrian religion, one of the
world's earliest, the supreme deity, Ormazd, created two entities: the
chaotic and destructive spirit Ahriman and his beneficent twin brother,
Spenta Mainyu, said Abner Weiss, a psychologist and the rabbi at the
Westwood Village Synagogue in Los Angeles.
"The ancient world struggled with the coexistence of good and evil,"
Weiss told Live Science. "They hypothesized a kind of demonic,
divine force that was responsible for evil, arising out of the notion that
a good god could not be responsible for bad things."
However, Satan was not a prominent figure in Judaism. In Hebrew
scripture, a demon-like figure appears only in the Book of Job. In that
book, an "adversary" or "tempter" asks God whether the prosperous
man Job would continue to praise God after losing everything. God
takes up the challenge, and strips Job of his wealth and family, leaving
the man wondering why such a horrible fate befell him.
But in this story, God wields more power than this adversary; as such,
this evil tempter challenges God, who then takes away Job's fortune,
Weiss said.
"[Judaism] found the notion of God having to share authority as
limiting the omnipotence and even the omniscience of God," Weiss
said. "And therefore, Satan was never personified as a source of evil
that was equally powerful."
But Satan did become a part of certain Jewish sects beginning around
the time of the Common Era, when Jesus was born, Weiss noted.
Moreover, Judaism's mystical teachings, called the Kabbalah, mention
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a light side and a dark side, but the dark side is never given equal University and author of "The Origin of Satan" (Random House,
power to the light, Weiss said.
1995). "In the Book of Job, he's practically a device to explain what
happened to Job."
Christianity's devil
Any Sunday school student can tell you that Satan is a fallen angel, The Hasids, a Jewish sect whose name translates into "The Holy
but this fall actually isn't described in the New Testament, or the Ones," were the first group in Judeo-Christian history to seriously
Christian bible, said Jerry Walls, a professor of philosophy at Houston discuss Satan, she said. The Hasids lived just before the Common Era
Baptist University and author of "Heaven, Hell and Purgatory: and didn't like how the Romans and some of their Jewish collaborators
Rethinking the Things That Matter Most" (Brazos Press, 2015).
ruled their country, Pagels said.
However, Satan suddenly appears in the gospels as the tempter of So, the Hasids withdrew from Jewish society and began preaching
Jesus, with nary an introduction of how the evil presence got there. So, about the end of times, when God would destroy all of the evil people,
Christian theologians have come to this conclusion: If God created the "which meant all of the Romans and all of the Jews who cooperated
universe, and everything God creates is good, then Satan must have with them," Pagels said.
been something good that went bad, Walls said.
The Hasids took a radical position: They said that they were following
"The only thing that can go bad by itself is a free being," Walls said. God, while their enemies had turned to the dark side, possibly without
"Since there was evil before human beings came on the scene, the even knowing it. "So now, it's the 'Sons of God' against the 'Sons of
inference is [Satan] must have been a fallen angel."
Darkness,'" Pagels said. "It's a split Jewish group."
There are other references to Satan in the Bible, depending on At this point of her research, Pagels had an epiphany, she said: The
different interpretations. The Hebrew Bible has two passages about concept of Satan emerges when communities split. Radical groups
people who aren't respectful toward God. In these passages, Isaiah 4 want a clean break between themselves and their enemies, and so they
and Ezekiel 28, human rulers make outrageous boasts, and some describe their enemies as Satan, as devils who will one day face God's
Christians interpret these actions as expressions of Satan, Walls said. wrath.
Moreover, the gospel of Paul in the New Testament refers to the snake "I realized that when people talk about Satan — like if somebody says,
from the Garden of Eden as Satan, though the snake isn't described 'Satan is trying to take over this country' — they're not thinking of
that way in Genesis, Walls said. In this sense, the snake and Satan can some supernatural battle up there in the sky," Pagels said. "They can
be seen as tempters that try to get people to disobey God, but aren't give you names and addresses. They know whom they're talking
always successful, Walls said. [Spooky! Top 10 Unexplained about."
Phenomena]
For instance, extremists might say, "America is the Great Satan."
"The first Adam fell to the temptation of Satan," Walls said. "Christ is That's because "when people talk about Satan, they're talking about
described as the second Adam, who successfully resisted temptation." people, too," Pagels said.
Satan as "the enemy" Satan can also emerge as the enemy — the The Hasids likely had a big influence on early Christianity, because
"other," or an "outside" group.
Jesus and John the Baptist preached similar ideas to those of the
"I thought of Satan as a kind of a joke, kind of a throwaway Hasids. That is, they said that the end of the world was coming and
character," said Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton
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that God wouldn't tolerate evil people, Pagels said. This meant the
Romans and the people working with them, she said.
Turning an enemy into Satan is useful, she added. It suggests that "our
opponents are not just people we disagree with — they're bad. You
can't negotiate with them. You can't do anything with them, because
they're essentially evil."
http://bit.ly/2dm4PSD
Shrinking Mercury is all it’s cracked up to be
Amid all the crashing onto comets and planning trips to Mars, you
may be forgiven for missing a wonderful scientific result from
NASA: the discovery that tiny Mercury joins Earth as the only other
tectonically active rocky planet.
Alan Duffy Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology
Mercury’s small size means that the core has cooled to such a degree
that the surface should be in a dull, geologically dead state, like that of
Mars. Yet close-up views of the surface from NASA’s MESSENGER
(MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging)
spacecraft have challenged that picture.
Small troughs (or graben) have been found alongside previously seen
step-like cracks (or fault scarps) in the surface caused by the shrinking
of the planet. These troughs, however, haven’t suffered weathering by
the frequent meteor bombardments. This suggests that tectonic
activity has occurred relativity recently, in the last few million years,
rather than billions. Activity in a world only fives time more massive
than our Moon.
As a raisin wrinkles as it gets smaller, the shrinking inner core of
Mercury as it cools causes cracks to form in the single tectonic plate
that makes up the surface. This surface plate is more like a single
eggshell than the Earth’s multiple plates.
These cracks, or scarps, can be step-like cliffs over a kilometre high
and run for hundreds of kilometres along the surface – a consequence
of the entire planet shrinking by 7km over billions of years. Just as the
Rosetta mission recently plunged to its destruction in Comet 67P to
get a final closeup view the MESSENGER spacecraft plunged into
Mercury last year, ending its mission spectacularly to provide us with
views of the smaller
troughs alongside the
scarps.
The presence of these
troughs mean that there
may be another familiar
feature to us on Earth of
a tectonically active
surface: earthquakes (or,
perhaps more accurately,
Mercury-quakes).
If
seismometers could be
placed on the surface to
measure these quakes,
we could build up a
picture of the planet’s
interior – just as the
refracting (bending) and
timing of seismic waves
through our planet reveal
Earth’s structure.
False colour image of Mercury taken by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft.
Without a hot central core this should be a geologically dead world yet recent
images suggest it’s still active. NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Institution of
Washington/USGS/Arizona State University
This latest result joins a growing list of surprises on Mercury that have
come courtesy of MESSENGER ’ s exploration. There was the
spectacular discovery of water ice on a planet whose surface reaches
430℃ during the day. The dark surface colouring was revealed to be
caused by layers of graphite – the “lead” in pencils. This was so
unexpected that MESSENGER lacked the capability to search for it,
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and it had to be deduced indirectly using a combination of several
instrument readings.
The latest close-up view of the
tiny world merely heightens the
anticipation for the next mission
to Mercury, BepiColombo. This
joint mission by the European
Space
Agency
and
Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency
will reach Mercury by 2024.
As with Rosetta, these planetary
space missions show that there is
no substitute for directly exploring
distant targets. Up close, foreign
worlds are always full of surprises.
Alongside the fault scarps (bottom left arrows) there exist linear troughs or
graben which can be seen in the close up inset. These troughs are narrow, just a
few tens of metres wide, and remarkably undisturbed by the frequent meteor
bombardment suggesting they formed recently. NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie
Institution of Washington/Smithsonian Institution